


Goodbye to all that

by viggorlijah



Series: Twenty-three things that did not happen to John Connor [5]
Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-15
Updated: 2011-03-15
Packaged: 2017-10-17 00:00:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viggorlijah/pseuds/viggorlijah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can't outrun the future. Or a terminator.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goodbye to all that

Dartmouth is like the last stretch in a ten-click. It's when your body's warm and loose and the earth's pounding underneath and everything is fucking flying. It's Lisa tumbling on his bed, Lisa with her wide mouth and dark hair, with her mind, so fucking brilliant and beautiful and she loves him. Loves him, Martin Bedell because he wants to be a writer, because he's more than his name.

There are recruiters on campus. Lisa's friends are protesting and Martin's friends are attending a talk. Martin's read his books, and part of him wants to go. But Lisa catches his hand and pulls him back down onto her bed, pushes her notebooks and half-chewed pens onto the floor and he closes his eyes and kisses her.

He sees John Connor sixteen months later. He thinks it's John Connor, but the face is a little different, older than the sixteen months. Maybe it's time travel. He gets up to say something, whatever you say to the man who saved your life and asked you to give up yours.

That's when he gets knocked out.

They let him out of the handcuffs at the hospital after the video footage shows him unconscious while a stranger tied up and shot his girlfriend.

"Do you know him?" they ask and Martin shakes his head, over and over. Lisa's mother cries and cries, and Martin closes his eyes and imagines he's running somewhere high and dry, a track in mountain country, the air burning sweet in his lungs.

He takes one photograph with him for basic training. It's not Lisa. It's a black and white security still.

Someday, Martin Bedell will meet John Connor again. And he'll run faster.


End file.
